Muggle Ingenuity
by McGonagall's Bola
Summary: Miss Paddock's rather shocking... confession to her Head of House has them both learn something new. -REWRITTEN!


"Miss Paddock, are you quite alright?" Minerva questioned, eyes resting upon the very pale pupil in the last row. As the pupil lightly nodded, Minerva's eyebrow quirked – she wasn't very convinced. Right when she chose to let it rest – Ms. Paddock would come to her if she ever wanted to talk about anything, she assumed – the girl pushed away from the desk and hurried to the door to the hallway. Minerva barely saw the edge of the billowing school robes disappear. Her eyebrow momentarily quirked deeper then. Oh, well… maybe a bit of an upset tummy? Minerva then turned to the rest of the pupils again, wiping her face from any concern that may have shown on it. "Alright, hedgehogs to pin cushions…" she resumed.

By the end of the lesson, Ms. Paddock, however, still had not returned. As the bell towers chimed to indicate the end of Transfiguration, and Minerva McGonagall too confirmed that fact, all of the fourth year Gryffindors and Slytherins began gathering their things and filtered from the room to their next lesson – for the Gryffindors that would have been Defense Against the Dark Arts and for the Slytherins that would have been Divination. Ms. Hallow, the girl usually seated beside Eileen Paddock, would make sure that she would get her belongings returned either at Defense Against the Dark Arts or later in the Great Hall or the common room in Gryffindor Tower.

Minerva McGonagall sighed leaning against her desk, concern for one of her dear Gryffindor cubs taking over then. She wouldn't have more lessons until after meal, but a pile of essays still needed be marked… She turned aside her head to look at it and pushed herself away from the desk, sitting down and releasing another deep sigh. She never really had enjoyed marking essays, considering the load of utter crap some pupils dared write – some were entirely beside the point of the whole thing. It had to be done either way, though. Maybe the discomfort of the high backed desk chair would help her finish this soon.

* * *

"Miss Paddock, a word?" Minerva McGonagall required, voice carrying over the noise of her pupils gathering their things and hurrying from the room to the Great Hall for dinner.

Minerva quietly eyed the doorway until only Ms. Paddock and she remained. She quietly waited until she could no longer hear any footsteps, then made her way to the desk in the very last row the pupil in question usually occupied. Leaning against the desk beside it, Minerva carefully eyed the fourth year Gryffindor. She didn't really look any healthier than last time she had seen the girl run from her lesson – possibly to the bathroom to go puke.

"Miss Paddock, you've had me quite worried about you yesterday."

"I'm sorry…" Eileen muttered, keeping her gaze down on her shoes.

"Miss Paddock, would you mind looking at me?" she questioned, and slowly but surely the pupil eyed her. "That's better. Now are you feeling any better than yesterday? You still look very pale to me. Maybe you should go see Madame Pomfrey if you haven't already."

"I'm sure it is just nothing," Eileen Paddock said, vigorously shaking her head. "It must be something that I ate. I already feel much better. I just haven't had a lot of sleep."

Minerva's eyebrow quirked once again – she wasn't very convinced. "Alright," she said, nonetheless. "Maybe you should go to bed early then today."

Eileen nodded. "I will, Professor McGonagall."

* * *

Eileen Paddock's daily pallor, however, didn't seem to have decreased in the least in the week following that conversation and by the next Tuesday, the pupil finally gathered enough courage to walk up to her Head of House after Transfiguration.

"Miss Paddock," Minerva McGonagall acknowledged without casting her gaze up again. She quietly continued to sort the essays in a pile, laying them down on the right of her as she sat upon the edge of the desk and redirected her eyes to the red haired girl. Her eyebrow quirked, inquiring for the reason for her cub remaining after when she could and maybe should have been joining her companions down to dinner.

"I uhm..." Eilieen began. She hadn't told anyone yet about her worries. "I was hoping to talk with you about... something personal..." Minerva's earlier line of mild worry deepened at that, as she quietly nodded, indicating that she could go on. "I haven't told anyone quite yet, but I'm late with my period, and I fear that I might be with child..." she muttered, not daring to look at her Head of House.

Minerva McGonagall's eyes grew wide as she rapidly tried to gather the meaning of what Eileen Paddock had said. "You WHAT?"

* * *

Eileen Paddock nervously swallowed, tapping her foot on the shiny parquet below as she waited. Minerva McGonagall, her Head of House, was seated right beside her on the bed in the infirmary. She had nearly begged her to go with upon her suggestion to go have the pupil's suspicions either confirmed or denied. She of course really hoped for the latter, having no idea just how she would actually deal with it otherwise. She was barely fourteen years old. What was happening to the world? Minerva wondered. She had only been teaching there for five years now. What would come next then?

"Please." Minerva sighted, putting her hand on the younger girl's leg to still it. She would have liked to say something more, had Poppy Pomfrey not just pulled aside the curtains to the cot carrying a variety of things in her arms. She quietly sat down on the bed as well between Ms. Paddock and Minerva McGonagall, putting down a banana and a strange looking square piece of what looked to be aluminum. Both Minerva herself and the pupil looked at it with a quirk of the eyebrow, not quite getting it.

"The test was negative," Poppy Pomfrey said, and both females beside her released sighs of relief. "I'm sure that I cannot keep you from the certain nightly – or daily – activities that lead you here to begin with," she continued, addressing the pupil on her left, "but I really believe you should be more careful. Next time you may not be so lucky. Therefore, I'm guessing that this could come in handy when having sexual intercourse," she said, holding up the squared aluminum-like piece, then ripping it open easily and pulling from it a rolled up piece of rubber. "I know that contraceptive charms are tricky, so… This is something new with Muggles, and it is called a condom. It should keep the man's semen from being released into the woman."

Minerva's eyes bulged at the bit of information Poppy Pomfrey shamelessly relayed, never really having seen anything like that until then. Something Muggle? Of course she assumed that they would not know any contraceptive charms, and they would have to find ways to limit children as well. She continued watching with curiosity as Poppy Pomfrey set the curled up piece of rubber on the banana serving as a make-shift fake penis. Both she and the pupil on the other side of the nurse eyed her with wide eyes, watching as she tightly held the top of the piece of rubber between her thumb and middle finger and rolled the rubber down over the length of the yellow banana with the other hand.

"See?" she asked, watching the female pupil on her one side vigorously nod. She artistically flicked her wand to make their make-shift fake penis disappear, and at the same time a bunch of the same squared pieces of aluminum which had held the condom of earlier appeared in the girl's lap. "Please be more careful from now," Poppy whispered and stood to leave the cot. She paid no heed to the other female sitting there, whose eyes were still widened. Muggle ingenuity…

Neither the younger Gryffindor or Minerva McGonagall dared to say anything or look at the other while leaving the infirmary.


End file.
